Brain

Identifying tuberculosis patients in Africa using passive methods is leaving many cases undiagnosed, according to researchers from the Netherlands, Kenya and the United States, who studied case detection methods in HIV-prone western Kenya. Tuberculosis (TB) occurs commonly in men and women with HIV, but in these patients TB can be more difficult to detect.

The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Scientists at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health (FLI; Tuebingen) have challenged the notion that airborne prions are innocuous.Details of how inhalation of prion-tainted aerosols induced disease are published January 13 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

It is known that prions can be transmitted through contaminated surgical instruments and, more rarely, through blood transfusions. However, prions are not generally considered to be airborne - in contrast to many viruses such as influenza and chicken pox.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers report that they can predict "with unprecedented accuracy" how well you will do on a complex task such as a strategic video game simply by analyzing activity in a specific region of your brain.

Airborne prions are also infectious and can induce mad cow disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disorder. This is the surprising conclusion of researchers at the University of Zurich, the University Hospital Zurich and the University of Tübingen. They recommend precautionary measures for scientific labs, slaughterhouses and animal feed plants.

Students can combat test anxiety and improve performance by writing about their worries immediately before the exam begins, according to a University of Chicago study published Friday in the journal Science.

Irvine, Calif. — The reward systems at universities heavily favor science, math and engineering research at the expense of teaching, which can and must change. That's the conclusion of UC Irvine biology professor Diane K. O'Dowd and research professors at Harvard University, Yale University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and elsewhere.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute of Learning and Memory have uncovered why relatively minor details of an episode are sometimes inexplicably linked to long-term memories. The work is slated to appear in the Jan. 13 issue of Neuron.

Older drivers could benefit from training programs that put them behind the wheel—in a driving simulator, with an observer who helps them develop their skills. That's the conclusion of a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Adults who take one of the world's most commonly prescribed sleep medications are significantly more at risk for nighttime falls and potential injury, according to a new study by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In the first update of the American Geriatrics Society and the British Geriatric Society's guidelines on preventing falls in older persons since 2001, they now recommend that all interventions for preventing falls should include an exercise component and that a number of new assessments should be used, including; feet and footwear, fear of falling, and ability to carry out daily living activities.

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 12, 2011) -- As adolescents move from elementary school into their middle or junior-high years, changes in friendships may signal potential academic success or troubles down the road, say University of Oregon researchers.

NIH-funded researchers were able to eliminate tinnitus in a group of rats by stimulating a nerve in the neck while simultaneously playing a variety of sound tones over an extended period of time, says a study published today in the advance online publication of the journal Nature. The hallmark of tinnitus is often a persistent ringing in the ears that is annoying for some, debilitating for others, and currently incurable.

Targeted nerve stimulation could yield a long-term reversal of tinnitus, a debilitating hearing impairment affecting at least 10 percent of senior citizens and up to 40 percent of military veterans, according to an article posted in the Jan. 12 online edition of Nature.

New Orleans, LA – Research conducted by Iaroslav Savtchouk, a graduate student, and S. June Liu, PhD, Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has shown that a single exposure to acute stress affected information processing in the cerebellum – the area of the brain responsible for motor control and movement coordination and also involved in learning and memory formation. The work is published in the January 12, 2011 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.